Pubdate: Sat, 09 Jul 2016
Source: Metro (Winnipeg, CN MB)
Page: A1
Copyright: 2016 Free Daily News Group Inc.
Contact:  http://www.metronews.ca/winnipeg
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5322
Author: Braeden Jones

HIGH HOPES FOR NEW POT SHOP

Owner doesn't expect trouble from police.

Winnipeggers green with envy over the lack of marijuana dispensaries 
sprouting up as they have in other cities can finally chill as 
there's a new pot shop in town.

It's not going to have cannabis products on site, but after its soft 
launch on Friday, 'Weeds Glass and Gifts' will begin signing up legal 
clients to order marijuana medicine on their behalf.

Owner Don Brier said the new store at 52 Adelaide Street will be a 
headshop, an education centre and intermediary between cannabis users 
and suppliers.

"We educate people, this is what we do," Brier said. "We are in the 
business of giving people knowledge... and pot."

Brier explained that anyone with "proper identification, and a proper 
medical prescription" will be able to sign up as a member to receive marijuana.

"(Then) what we do is a mail order, and that's how we are going to 
deal with it for the moment," he said. "This is like craft pot."

The product on offer-the organic kind, not the glass kind-will come 
from licensed producers and personal production licensees.

The last time a dispensary set up shop in our city, it sold cannabis 
medicine for less than two weeks before it was raided and closed on 
August 4, 2015.

But Brier said he doesn't expect trouble from the police.

"We're not doing anything illegal, we are selling glass and giving 
information, and even if we were selling pot and they were to come 
after us, I say that's criminal use of public resources," he said.

"If that happens, we the people will be going to court... We're 
actually helping the community, not hurting anyone.

"We want people to know it's good, safe, clean product that is not 
only legal and tested but creates jobs pays taxes, (and) drains money 
away from organized crime."

In June, Winnipeg Police Service Grow Operations Unit member Sgt. 
Carrol MacDonald said the service caught wind of other shops like 
this trying to open, "and (police) enforced the laws as we know them 
right away."

The only legal Health Canada-regulated grow operation in Manitoba, 
Delta 9 Bio-tech, also allows mail orders, but doesn't offer customer 
service like the new store on Adelaide.

"You can't just go there and knock on the door and go, "I'd like to 
buy a gram please," MacDonald told Metro in a previous interview.

Across Canada, dispensaries have popped up and been shut down by 
police increasingly since the new federal Liberal government 
initiated plans to legalize marijuana.

Since then, in Brier's opinion, "marijuana laws have fallen."

He said people are clamouring for dispensaries like his to provide 
information and education on what strains of marijuana work best for 
certain ailments and different people.

"There absolutely for sure is demand, believe me," Brier said.

Weeds on Adelaide will soft launch and begin taking applications for 
membership Friday.

It will announce the date of its official grand opening in the coming weeks.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom